Ferries fares fix frozen
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• Plans to set up a pricefixing deal between the two biggest cross-Channel ferry operators, Sealink and P&O, have been frozen by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The ferry companies have been considering a fare cartel as a pre-emptive blow to competition from the Channel Tunnel.
Sir Gordon Borne, the director-general of Fair Trad ing, says that he has ordered the monopoly investigation because ferry operators are barred from running price cartels under a 1974 ruling.
P&O European Ferries and Sealink say the deal is needed if they are to survive competition from the Channel Tunnel in the mid-1990s. The two companies currently control more than 80% of the crossChannel market.